The present invention relates to a method of splicing optical fibres disposed in a layer in a cable, possibly after the layer has been unrolled into a flat tape configuration, said method including the following operations:
(a) the upper and the lower parts of the tape between which the fibres are trapped are serarated;
(b) said upper and lower parts are cut and moved apart along a length which allows a fibre connection zone to be cleared;
(c) the fibres to be spliced are laid in positioning V-grooves in a plate;
(d) adhesive or synthetic resin is applied to a portion of the fibres to be spliced; and
(e) the adhesive or synthetic resin is hardened;
In most known optical fibre splicing methods, the fibre are spliced in pairs either by welding or in connectors. This requires accurate alignment of each pair of fibres to be spliced which both lengthy and expensive. Further, the preparation of the fibres before the splicing operation is tricky and makes it difficult to splice cables in the field, since it includes baring, cutting and polishing the fibre ends.
It has also been contrived to splice fibres simultaneously in groups. But these methods require the use of positioning matrices machined with great precision.
Lastly, it has been contrived to dispose fibre ends to be spliced side by side in positioning grooves in two half plates which are symmetrical about an axis which is parallel to the axes of the fibres, to fix the fibres on the plate with drops of adhesive near the non-bared ends of the tapes, to cut the fibres carefully in the plane of symmetry of the plate perpendicularly to the axes of the fibres so as to have cut sections which are truly plane, to remove the excess lengths of fibres and to bring down one of the half plates over the other so as to bring the end surfaces of the fibres into contact with one another.